Business intelligence is a highly effective asset that can help you make informed, data-driven decisions relating to the direction of your business. It’s all about using the right tools and technologies to collect and analyse valuable metrics so that you understand your past, present and future performance. The right data can help you analyse your market and competitors, predict future demand, optimise your rates, and identify which strategies you need to work on in order to create a profitable business model and generate the highest level of revenue for your hotel.
Let’s take a look at what business intelligence means for the hotel industry and how you can collect the right data to grow your business.
What is hotel business intelligence?
Business intelligence is all about using data analytics to better understand your hotel’s performance so that you can make the right adjustments to your strategies and help your business grow. This includes data relating to guests, such as their booking habits and behaviours, which prices tend to attract specific segments of the market, and the feedback you get from your guests. It also includes data relating to the market in which you operate, including demand fluctuations, booking trends, and what your competitors are offering. Plus, it’s important to take into account metrics relating to your internal operations so that you can reduce inefficiencies and identify if there are any areas of your business that you can improve.
By using the best hotel management software tools, you can collect all this data, regularly monitor and analyse it, and make the right data-driven decisions to help you build a solid reputation as a business that offers value to each and every guest. However, it’s important to understand that business intelligence is not a one-off strategy; it’s something you need to implement in your daily activities so that you have a comprehensive and continuous understanding of how your business is evolving from one day to the next. And that means using the right technology so that you have easy access to all the data you need on a daily basis, as we will discuss shortly.
How can your hotel revenue benefit from business intelligence?
Here are some of the benefits of creating a hotel revenue strategy founded on strong business intelligence.
With the right business analytics, you can:
- Compare historical data with your present performance levels to help you predict future demand.
- Better-understand your industry and grow your business.
- Identify trends and demand fluctuations and keep your finger on the pulse of your target market.
- Make better strategic decisions and create more efficient internal operations, helping you to build your reputation and attract more guests to your hotel.
- Make faster strategic decisions so that you can stay ahead of the competition.
- Determine which areas of your business you need to improve so that your hotel can function more efficiently and effectively. This includes increasing profit and reducing costs.
- Build a strong and effective revenue management strategy.
- Adapt your strategies to market patterns and trends in real time, helping you to improve your positioning.
- Compare your performance data with that of your competitors and, in the case of hotel chains, that of your other properties.
- Set realistic and attainable performance goals for your hotel and monitor your progress towards meeting your objectives.
- Improve your marketing strategy and increase your brand’s reach on external distribution channels by identifying which booking sources attract the most guests and which demographics generate the most revenue for your hotel.
How can you collect the right data to boost your hotel revenue?
The best way to collect the right business intelligence data to boost your hotel revenue is to use a revenue management system (RMS). This is a form of hotel management software that helps you gather valuable insights about your business so that you can make data-driven strategic decisions and optimise your rates and other revenue streams accordingly. This includes tracking real-time performance data, analysing market trends, monitoring your online reputation, and keeping your finger on the pulse of your competitor sets. All this enables you to create accurate hotel forecasting reports relating to demand and consumer behaviour so that you can adjust your pricing and occupancy strategies accordingly and generate the highest level of revenue for your hotel.
Essentially, an RMS helps you consolidate the data you collect from all your hotel management software solutions so that you can make sense of it all and predict patterns and fluctuations. That way, you have access to the right business intelligence data so that you can adjust all your hotel strategies in line with the changing nature of the hospitality industry. You can also identify potential new revenue streams that you may have otherwise missed, helping you build a business intelligence strategy focused on total profitability at every level of your business.